


No Time Like The Present

by thisislegit



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: 5+1 Things, Courting Rituals, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Smart Son Goku (Dragon Ball)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-08 22:17:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18903751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisislegit/pseuds/thisislegit
Summary: Did the idiot understand what this meant? He couldn’t possibly be this stupid. Vegeta's instincts were telling him he should reject the offer while it was fresh. Maybe Kakarot didn’t know what he was doing. If Vegeta let this progress further things might become awkward when he tried something in return.





	No Time Like The Present

**Author's Note:**

> this is un-beta'd cause im impatient so uh good luck

The first gift was a dinosaur. It wasn’t even dead. It was unconscious, and Vegeta looked at the offering with curiosity and irritation. The hell was he supposed to do with this? Kakarot was holding the things’ tail. A really big knife for skinning sat tucked into his sash, and a bag was slung over his hip.

“’Hey Geta! Look what I got!” Kakarot waved his arms in the air to get his attention.

“I’m perfectly capable of seeing it from up here.”

 “Ya can’t eat in the sky,” He’d cupped his hands around his mouth as if his voice wasn’t loud enough.

Vegeta floated down towards the cleared out field, his arms crossed as he feigned annoyance at being interrupted, “You didn’t even kill it.”

“Wanted to get a fire started first. Tastes better the fresher ya kill these ones. If I’d dragged it here dead, the muscles woulda gotten all tough.”

“And what makes this giant lizard any different from the rest?”

“It’s a plant-eater.”

Vegeta raised an eyebrow. And that mattered how?

“I figured ya haven’t eaten this one before. Want to try it with me?” Kakarot had the same excited look in his eyes as he grinned towards the prince.

 “Right…” Vegeta went over to the head of the beast. It had a rather ugly face, it’s teeth flat, uneven, and jutting out between its scaled maw. A large lump sat on his head where it was struck as it breath stayed shallow. The buffoon couldn’t understand what such a present would mean. “Why didn’t you just kill it and instant transmission it here?”

“Uh…” Kakarot had a tree under each arm as he blinked at the prince. “Hehe, didn’t even think of that.”

That seemed likely. Vegeta decided to let this one go. He made sure to knock the dinosaur out a second time when it started to wake while Kakarot prepped the fire. He didn’t expect to eat with Kakarot in the middle of the day, but the meat was just fatty and tender enough that eating it slightly charred did nothing to change the savory flavor which he refused to admit sated his sour mood.

 

* * *

 

The second gift was suspicious. Kakarot had popped in on occasion to drop off his spawn so the child could play with Trunks, but, besides the occasional offer to spar, did nothing out of the ordinary. It’d been exactly 3 months since their sporadic dinosaur lunch when Vegeta was presented with a scarf. A thick, blue, white, and yellow scarf that was two meters long. The colors were uneven, and there was no discernable pattern meaning it was handmade. Autumn was ending soon. West City didn’t get snow, but it still dropped below freezing temperatures with the shifts in atmosphere.

“What is this.” Vegeta held the folded scarf in his hands, his lips curling in distaste.

“It’s a scarf. Bulma told me ya ain’t wearing the sweaters she bought ya.”

Vegeta glared at the fabric, “And?”

“It gets real cold out here. I always gotta send Goten over more bundled up than an astronaut, and I thought this was a lil better than sweaters.”

“Did you make this?” Vegeta’s thumb traced over the pattern. The material was soft, but would hold heat in.

“Yup! 18 got into crocherin, and she was showin me. I made some hats for the boys, and these,” Kakarot held out his own obnoxiously orange gloves.

“Why is it so long?”

“Well, I wanted it pretty wide so you can wrap it around yer neck without it chokin ya, but then I remembered ya stay out pretty late lookin at stuff. Made it longer so it can be a lap blanket too.” Kakarot scratched the back of his neck, his head tilting to the side.

Did the idiot understand what this meant? First the meal, and then a handmade gift. He couldn’t possibly be this stupid. His instincts were telling him he should reject the offer while it was fresh. Maybe Kakarot didn’t know what he was doing. If Vegeta let this progress further things might become awkward when he tried something in return. Another part of him that was familiar with this planet could easily chalk this up into being an Earth Thing. There were many customs and exchanges that Vegeta didn’t understand on this dirt clod of a planet, and this could be another one. Kakarot insisted they were ‘friends’, and he’d seen the Z-warriors giving each other gifts with platonic intent.

His logic won out, as he filed this under Earth Things. The idiot didn’t know what mating was no less courting. Vegeta pretended he didn’t kill a little fire of excitement as he accepted the gift and went back into Capsule Corp without a goodbye.

 

* * *

 

The third gift came in the middle of the night. Vegeta hadn’t been sleeping. No, his nightmares woke him up around one in the morning, and he hadn’t planned on going back to sleep to greet them. Instead, he pressed the butt of his palms into his eyes to keep the burning at bay. He sat there for an hour debating the pros and cons of using the gravity room until dawn and beating the nightmares out of his system when a tapping came at his balcony window.

Vegeta could sense Kakarot’s ki from the other side. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he knew he wasn’t in the mood for the idiots shenanigans so late at night. The knocking came back a little firmer. Could he tell Vegeta wasn’t asleep? If that’s the case, the prince could take his anger out with a good spar. Maybe crack a few mountains and take his weathered, beaten body home around dawn. The more he dwelt on it, the more he thought it better than sitting in the dark contemplating his demons.

When he went to open the curtains, he saw Kakarot in a thick coat wearing his homemade earmuffs and gloves. He pointed to his neck and then Vegeta’s through the window. Taking the hint, Vegeta put on something thicker to brave the cold weather including a coat of his own and the ridiculous scarf the third class had created.

Kakarot didn’t say anything when Vegeta stepped outside. He simply started flying and looked back to check if Vegeta was following. The checks stopped when he was flying right next to the prince to this mystery location. Weak gusts of wind stroked Vegeta’s face trying to sneak into his coat while small flurries of snow began to buffet their path once they were out of West City. The snow grew thicker both in the air and on the ground as Vegeta took note they were heading north.

Feeling  both tired and antsy, his suspicion grew as they continued to fly through colder regions. Bulma’s Christmas party was last weekend, and Kakarot hadn’t given him anything. He didn’t get a gift from anyone else either besides his children, and Bulma, but it had been a few months since he was gifted the scarf. A traitorous part of him was disappointed at the lack of a present. The logical side of him chalked the last two encounters being an Earth Thing as he suspected, and Kakarot’s demeanor at the party only solidified his idea. This though. This felt different.

It wasn’t until he was swarmed by long strings of light that he realized they were slowing down, having flown on auto-pilot. They stopped completely, encompassed in the waves of light that changed from green to purple and back again. Kakarot was smiling, giving Vegeta’s scarf a small tug as he pointed towards the ground. The lower they got, the more things cleared up as Vegeta saw an ice bench with some plastic covered pillows on it.

 Kakarot sat down first, patting the spot next to him for Vegeta to take, which he did. Reluctantly.

“How long have you been awake?” Vegeta asked.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Kakarot said, his eyes on the sky.

“And you assumed I would be awake?”

“Well that, or I’d wake ya up.”

Vegeta was unsure what annoyed him more. The fact that Kakarot didn’t care if he’d woken him up, or the fact that the fool was so sure there’d be no consequences either way. The only thing stopping Vegeta from sending Kakarot through a glacier was the idiot remaining silent after the comment.

They stayed like that, under the lights for ten minutes. Ten turned to twenty. Vegeta’s toes began to turn cold from the snow crunching under his boots. Twenty turned to thirty. His fingers soon followed, him tucking his hands into his sleeves, gripping his wrists to keep the heat trapped inside. Thirty to thirty-five. He sniffled a few times, the scarf now covering half his face.

“Sometimes I think I remember it,” Kakarot’s voice cracked through the silence.

Remember what? Vegeta didn’t ask, letting Kakarot fill the air on his own.

“I get dreams of red skies, and pink clouds. A planet gettin smaller and smaller til it’s just a blip. A lil star that I can’t tell from the rest. I’ll be in the canyons or the mountains here, and see a tall stack of rocks, and my chest’ll hurt a little. Like it’s familiar. Like dega vu.”

It was déjà vu, but Vegeta’s own chest grew too tight at the implication to correct him. There was no way Kakarot could remember Vegetasei. How long had he remembered? What did he know? What was he hiding from the prince? Flickers of rage started low in his belly as he gripped his wrists tighter.

“I been wantin to tell ya about ‘em. The dreams I had, but they don’t happen that often, and… the time never seemed right. I feel like you’d be mad if I brought ‘em up durin a fight or somethin.”

He was right. Vegeta would be pissed if Kakarot suddenly decided he remembered things, but according to his dreams he didn’t remember much. He knew much less than Vegeta did, and Vegeta only knew from the two years he lived in the palace and the stories Nappa and other surviving warriors had told him before their passing.

“I wonder if the dreams are really how it looked, or if I been so many places that I’m just makin it all up,” Kakarot’s head dropped, so his chin touched his neck.

His visage was dark. Kakarot never seemed to have issues with being called an earthling before. The bastard did everything he could to avoid his heritage. The tail hacking. Settling down with a human woman, and having kids only to cut their tails off next. The fear of Oozaru too much for him to deal with. Or perhaps it was the fear of lacking control in a state that could destroy everything he worked so hard to protect. Vegeta saw the edge of Kakarot’s tail poking out from the hem of his coat.

They’d come back. Vegeta didn’t think they would, but they had. He woken up a year ago and there it was, along with his children’s own tails. Trunks and Bra hadn’t been born with them, but the kids were eager to start climbing anything and everything they could to Bulma’s dismay.

Gohan considered cutting his off a second time, but something held him back. Whether it was because it worked as a child leash for Pan, or was a reminder of a culture he’d never completely learn was up in the air. However, Vegeta appreciated it. Another piece of home that was lost returned to him. His eyes wandered over to Kakarot, and he wondered if the fool was the one who wished them back. The one who was so fast to deny his Saiyan heritage looking for something to cling onto after all these years.

It was pitiful.

It was familiar.

It was kind of comforting.

“You’re not.” The words slipped from Vegeta’s mouth before he could stop them.

Kakarot’s head shot up, his eyes wide and shiny. Vegeta looked at the purple lights that reflected in those dark brown eyes and wondered if his expression mirrored it.

“Do you remember how warm it was?” Vegeta continued.

“No, but,” Kakarot paused to smile, “I remember the air bein pretty dusty.”

Vegeta snorted, and turned to get lost in the sky. That was enough sharing for tonight.

His entire body was shivering by the time Kakarot had IT’ed him back to his bedroom. An hour after a warm shower, Vegeta realized the context. It’d been another present from Kakarot.

A gift of the past.

 

* * *

 

The fourth present caught Vegeta off-guard. He didn’t know why he was letting Kakarot continue on with this courting process, but he did want to see where it went. How much the third class learned, and who he learned it from. He had a suspicion it was from the despicably revived long-haired Saiyan he called a brother, but the question was why. What did Kakarot want from this? It couldn’t be Vegeta himself. What would Kakarot gain from courting a prince to a dead planet? There was no status, riches, or power that came with success.

Vegeta puzzled on it during their park trip. The flowers were blooming, and Bulma brought everyone together once more to watch the petals swim while they drank copious amounts of alcohol. Yet another Earth Thing Vegeta couldn’t understand. What was the point of having a party if one planned on doing everything they could to forget it by drinking?

Instead of drinking with them, he stuck to the outskirts watching Trunks and Bra spar with the Sons. Gohan wasn’t taking any of the kids seriously as he ducked and weaved away from the pre-teens. A soft smile sat on his face that matched his father’s. Goten was intent on teasing Bra into a flurry that had her going Super Saiyan in an attempt to catch him. Trunks was caught between fighting Gohan and dodging Pan’s ‘defensive ki blasts’.

A hand clapped onto his shoulder, and Vegeta narrowed his eyes at the offender.

“They’re havin fun, aren’t they,” Kakarot laughed.

“They’re getting sloppy.”

“Aaww, don’t be like that ‘Geta. Ya know yer kids train just as hard as you let ‘em.”

“Hmph.” Vegeta didn’t comment. The one time Bra burst into the gravity room at 300 times gravity gave him a heart attack. The scolding they both got from Bulma made his ears ring for the next hour, and he made sure to keep the door sealed since then. Her and Trunks began joining him once a week, but they were only allowed up to 50x which did nothing for the prince.

The woes of being a father.

“Hey, think I could take ‘em all on at once?”

“Depends.”

“Let’s find out!” Kakarot IT’ed away from there appearing in the sky next to Trunks.

Vegeta watched him snatch Bra and Pan by the back of their jackets as he talked to them all. After letting them go, he got into a fighting stance. The kids were looking to each other in bewilderment as to what they should do when Goten grinned and went super saiyan. The rest of them followed making Kakarot pause only to bolt in the other direction. The chase was on it seemed, the Briefs and the Sons not holding back against the worlds’ greatest hero in the makeshift sky battle.

Kakarot was doing a pretty good job keeping up with them until Gohan started to get serious. Then he powered up to Super Saiyan himself to keep up the air battle. The sounds of whooping and cheering closing in alerted Vegeta that an audience appeared behind him. Turning his head, he spotted the Z-fighters, some with red cheeks, cheering on certain members. Bulma and Chichi were in the group as well, cheering on their kids to take Kakarot out.

It was Pan and Bra who got Kakarot in the stomach with a double kick, Goten and Trunks who sweeped him, and Gohan delivering the finished blow as the group pinned Kakarot to the ground. They all powered down, everyone laughing as the fool continued to struggle but was too busy giggling himself to just toss them all off like Vegeta knew he could.

Once he cried uncle, they let him off so he could stand. That weird excitement returned to Vegeta’s chest while Kakarot was patting heads, and talking to each of them equally, giving special attention and talking about technique to Bra and Trunks as seriously as he did his own kids. Almost like he thought of them as his own.

Vegeta hissed, his throat becoming tight. Acceptance of family. A gift of the present. Damn it.

He swore he’d be prepared for the last gift.

 

* * *

 

The final gift came barely a month after the flower picnic. It was clear Kakarot’s patience had worn out, since he didn’t wait the three months he’d been doing before.

Vegeta was sitting on the rooftop of capsule corp, out of sight. Brooding as Bulma would accuse him of. Truth was he needed some time alone, but didn’t want to signal an offer to spar by flying out to his usual spot. Nor did he want his kids banging on the gravity room doors until he let them in. Since the fight with Kakarot, they’d been insistent on learning more techniques. He was proud of this, but also tired of their constant chatter.

“Vegeta.”

Kakarot floated down to stand in front of the sitting prince.

“Kakarot.”

“So, uh,” Kakarot scratched his cheek, “Could ya come with me?”

Vegeta knew why the fool was here, but figured he might as well make the younger man squirm, “I’m not in the mood to spar today.”

“Oh, it ain’t fer that. Ya know what I been doin right?”

“What do you mean?”

“The gifts.”

“You mean the scarf you gave me? It doesn’t really count as multiple gifts now does it,” Vegeta stood up with a stretch. “If you’re done blabbering, I’m going to eat lunch.”

His arm was grabbed, and Vegeta looked at the large, calloused hand wrapping around his forearm. Raising an eyebrow at Kakarot, he waited.

Kakarot cleared his throat, his tail unwinding from his waist as he took Vegeta’s hand into both of his own. “Vegeta…Prince Vegeta,” his face colored with a blush, “I, uh, I’d like permission ta court.”

Vegeta watched Kakarot’s tail wrap around his leg, a sign of being nervous. He made sure his own tail remained coiled tight around his waist since he had more control over the damn thing. The excitement that’d grown with each gift was an inferno now, but Vegeta quelled it. He wasn’t a child. He would handle this with the utmost propriety. Nodding, he saw Goku’s tail release itself, wagging as he lifted them from the top of Capsule Corp.

They flew to the location of the last gift, Kakarot not letting go of Vegeta’s hand the whole way there. They went past the training grounds Vegeta frequented that consisted of canyons where his past mistakes laid buried. They flew past Mt. Paozu, and the small island Roshi resided on. Kakarot was zipping him from east to south and back northeast again until the air became dry.

Vegeta looked below to see long sweeping hills covered in greens and blues. Smatterings of trees dotted the open fields like someone painted them there, all of the earth coming to a close to a raised peninsula by the water. His eyes came towards the structure not on the edge of the piece of land, but at the beginning of it where the rocks started to narrow.

A capsule house. Unique in design because instead of the dome shapes he’d grown accustomed too, the structure was blockier giving it a sturdier appearance.

A gift of the future.

They landed in front of the small place, and Kakarot let go of his hand. His tail swung low between his legs like it was hiding, although his stance was open and ramrod straight. It was kind of cute.

“There’s a bunch of food out here to catch, and I do know a lot about farmin too.” Kakarot’s tail swayed higher. “I got the area behind the house all tilled, and it’s far enough out that our trainin won’t make nobody worry. Spare bedrooms too for the kids to stay over. Uh,” He scratched the back of his neck, his tail in constant motion now. “I didn’t get a car, but nimbus is pretty handy for grocery shoppin. I could get a car though. I mean, I got a tractor. Makes sense for me to get a car too.”

“Kakarot.”

Kakarot shut up, shuffling his feet, before letting his hands fall limp at his sides.

“I don’t know how you expect me to live in this place,” Vegeta started.

The third class visibly deflated, his expression crest-fallen. Vegeta savored it for a moment, but then felt a little bad.

“You didn’t let me grab any of my things before flying me all the way out here.”

Kakarot’s tail puffed up as he pouted, “That was mean!”

“You didn’t start courting me because I’m nice. Now,” Vegeta let his tail unwind to drag the tip under Kakarot’s jaw, “are we going to stand here, or are you going to show me around?”

The third class Saiyan blushed, but let his enthusiasm take over as he took Vegeta’s hand and led him inside.

 

* * *

 

It was their first night in their new home together. They hadn’t slept together. They hadn’t even kissed. There was no rush to do anything, but lie in bed together and see how things felt. See if this was right before they worked on telling the others of their situation. Vegeta waited until Goku began to drift off to unveil his own gift.

A glint of metal in the room illuminated by the moonlight from the window. The idiot hadn’t bought curtains, which would leave them to the sun’s mercy during sunrise, but they’d remedy that tomorrow. Vegeta, instead, took advantage of it as he pressed the flat side of the blade against Kakarot’s bare chest.

“’Geta?” Kakarot’s voice was groggy as he shifted, “It’s cold.”

“I know. Wake up.” Vegeta was sitting up in bed, the handle of the dagger in his palm as he watched Kakarot rub the sleep from his eyes. “My acceptance.”

The idiot was more awake as he held his hands out. Vegeta placed the partially sheathed dagger in his open palms and waited. Watched as Goku took the blade out and looked at the metalwork. Vegeta had been working on it since the night of the third gift.

The blade wasn’t a flat piece of metal, instead it looked as though someone weaved the metal together in the center like a braid, the outer rim of it wide from the handle and narrowing into a point at the tip like a border. It’s handle was dark wood, with engraved metal bands, and Kakarot flipped it over, his eyes widening a bit. On the butt of the handle was the the kanji for his name.

Son Goku.

It was the most intimate acknowledgement of Kakarot’s earth heritage mixed with an offering that was Saiyan in nature. He sheathed the dagger, scooting closer to Vegeta while holding the blade against his chest. Vegeta said nothing, their tails twining together as Kakarot pressed his forehead against Vegeta’s.

“Ya mean it ‘Geta?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

Kakarot smiled, his eyes shiny from the moonlight, “Can I kiss ya?”

“Make it quick. I want to go to sleep.”

“Yer the one that woke me up,” Kakarot said tilting his head so their noses were slanted together.

“And yet you’re taking your ti-mm.” Vegeta leaned into the kiss, his eyes slanting closed.

The kiss was brief, Kakarot pulling away so their lips barely brushed each other. There was a smile on the fool’s lips as he set the dagger on the bedside table. Next thing Vegeta knew, arms were wrapping around him and pulling him back down onto the bed.

It wouldn’t take long for Vegeta to realize he hadn’t mated with a Saiyan, but an octopus with less arms.

**Author's Note:**

> pls leave a comment if ya liked it


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